


Shell of a Man

by 50artists



Series: Derry, Maine [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 19:43:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20662697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/50artists/pseuds/50artists
Summary: "I don't write my own material."(Prequel toBad Parts In)





	Shell of a Man

**Author's Note:**

> clown movie low key made me tear up in the cinema... pennywise did NOT say gay rights, guys

"I don't write my own material."

Yes, there is the obvious (Richie Tozier has no wife or girlfriend, no nagging female partner that half of his jokes hinge around) but there is also the less obvious (Richie Tozier has no genuine childhood memories to laugh about, no stories about the first time he smoked or drank or fucked, Richie Tozier dislikes telling 'your mom' jokes to an audience but he doesn't know why, Richie Tozier is a mess but in less of a fun way and more of a fucked up way than his stage presence would lead you to believe. Does anyone want to hear a joke about the way he picks at his fingernails until they bleed? The way he can never sleep at night? What about his drinking habit that he's tried to kick a million times, even though he always ends up alone in bed with a bottle of whiskey? No? What a shame.)

Believe it or not, stand-up comedy is easy. Richie has no idea why other people struggle so much, why they rant and rave about hecklers and stage fright and anxiety and the crippling fear of failure, or whatever. Comedy is easy. You go up on stage, try to remember your lines, earn a quick buck and then fuck off again. He'd done much, much scarier things. He can't remember what, exactly, but he knows he has.

The rest of life is less easy. Richie never has a long-term partner. He moves from shitty apartment to shitty apartment and doesn't settle. After his career takes off he starts living in slightly less shitty apartments, but not much else changes.

Richie is not closeted. Not exactly. If he came out tomorrow - well, his career would probably take a hit, but it wouldn't be the end of the world, and he could move on. But the Richie Tozier on stage isn't him. The Richie Tozier on stage is an act, and it seems strange to introduce just that one element of reality into his show. What next? Would he be revealing that he had no childhood memories? Would he go out on stage and say, hey guys, just so that you all know, I feel a haunting sense of dread every time I see abandoned houses, and sewer grates can give me panic attacks if I stare at them for too long, and I'm pretty sure something happened to me that was so horrible I repressed it and fucked up my brain for life? No. It's better to keep the separations between real Richie and stage Richie nice and firm.

Or maybe that is nothing but Richie's excuse, a lie to tell himself, and he's so deep in the closet that he's drowning. Whatever.

It fucks with your head when you lead two lives, even if one exists only for one and a half hours on stage each night. His female fans (of whom there are a surprisingly large amount, and sometimes Richie wants to say, God, can't you tell this stuff is written by a dickhead with a superiority complex and a simmering resentment of all things female 'cause he never gets laid? Can't you tell the stage Richie Tozier would be a nightmare? But hey, maybe that's what they want) approach him in bars and giggle even when his jokes border on mean and tell him how talented and funny he was, and how they watched his Netflix special and almost cried with laughter, and how they always secretly thought he was good looking but he is even more handsome in person. Some of them just say, straight up, that they want to fuck a famous guy. Earlier in his career, Richie had tried, once or twice. He quickly learnt it wasn't gonna happen. No matter how witty or vibrant or, let's be honest, butch - he can't get it on with women, and it isn't worth the effort of apologising and blaming his nerves and creeping back to his own apartment with his tail between his legs.

It was easier with men. Obviously. But Richie avoids commitment like the plague, he doesn't give out his number and he doesn't have a Facebook page. Nine times out of ten he sneaks out of bed in the middle of the night. He feels as if he is regulating himself, just like he regulates his scripts: Fine, you can have this part of me, but nothing more, nothing deeper.

And suddenly he is almost forty and he has nothing.

Throw back a scotch. Go on stage and make them laugh, follow the script, follow the fucking script, Richie. Go back home and pretend not to be warping inwards. Fill his time with video games or movies or the odd nameless fuck or, most commonly, more scotch. Whatever. Who fucking cares? His life is sad and cyclical and half-formed and he is getting older but he is getting no less aimless, in fact he's getting worse, barely holding it all together, just waiting for the day (it grows more inevitable with every fuckup) that all the stupid artifice around him will come crashing down and expose Richie Tozier, shell of a man. It's all a joke. Not the sort that would make people laugh, unfortunately.

So, yeah. Richie doesn't write his own material.

"I fucking knew it!" says Eddie.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is [xenixat](http://xenixat.tumblr.com) :^)


End file.
